Speeding up W10 on a Dell Laptop

Ugley_Matt · 26 Aug 2020 at 09:50

I'm looking at my mums W10 Dell laptop as since the upgrade to Windows 10 its running like a dog. I've done the back up and reinstall but there is so much bloatware that Dell put on i would like to reinstall a clean windows 10 OS first and then look at speeding it up.

I'm also thinking maybe put a SSD in it as well, but would still like as clean an install as possible.

There is this Fresh Start thing i have been seeing that looks like it should do exactly what i want, but i don't see that button in this version of Windows and haven't seen the option to not reinstall all the crapware. I suspect this is due to do the OS that Dell has?

If i download the windows installer to a usb and then install from that will the licence key transfer over?

MrRockliffe · 26 Aug 2020 at 09:56

Step 1: Download Windows Media Creation Toolkit

Step 2: Install Windows 10 Home onto a USB 3.0 Stick (will install a bit quicker)

Step 3: Install new SSD into the laptop

Step 4: Boot from USB, format SSD and install Windows 10 onto laptop

You should find it automatically activates

Ugley_Matt · 26 Aug 2020 at 13:11

MrRockliffe said:
Step 1: Download Windows Media Creation Toolkit

Step 2: Install Windows 10 Home onto a USB 3.0 Stick (will install a bit quicker)

Step 3: Install new SSD into the laptop

Step 4: Boot from USB, format SSD and install Windows 10 onto laptop

You should find it automatically activates

And that will be a nice clean non Dell bloat OS?

MrRockliffe · 26 Aug 2020 at 13:49

Ugley_Matt said:
And that will be a nice clean non Dell bloat OS?

Yep, it’ll be like it’s a custom built PC.

You might need to download some of dells software to ensure all features work properly, but hopefully windows will do its thing and find all the required stuff itself :-)

bremen1874 · 26 Aug 2020 at 14:07

Reinstall if you like, but installing an SSD will have the biggest impact. Also, make sure it has a sensible amount of memory installed (8GB+).

FBi7 · 26 Aug 2020 at 14:08

If the laptop's lacking on RAM, increasing it could help too.

Edit: beaten!

0sborne · 26 Aug 2020 at 16:06

MrRockliffe said:
Step 1: Download Windows Media Creation Toolkit

Step 2: Install Windows 10 Home onto a USB 3.0 Stick (will install a bit quicker)

Step 3: Install new SSD into the laptop

Step 4: Boot from USB, format SSD and install Windows 10 onto laptop

You should find it automatically activates

+1

andy_mk3 · 26 Aug 2020 at 16:10

Just buy an SSD and clone it. The bloatware wont have any affect on an SSD. Benefits here are you're not going to change anything on the system that older people generally hate.

Ugley_Matt · 26 Aug 2020 at 16:32

Thanks all, for the small outlay a SSD looks like a wothwhile upgrade and then a nice clean OS on top.

ED209 · 26 Aug 2020 at 21:11

Ugley_Matt said:
And that will be a nice clean non Dell bloat OS?

It may not have the dell Bloat but you will still get the Windows 10 bloat

darael · 27 Aug 2020 at 00:20

Agree with the SSD upgrade, do it no matter what you do. The difference will be bight and day to your mum.

If it has less than 8 GB of RAM, consider building it up to 8 GB or more. This will help, especially if Chrome is being used.

You could install Windows and remove the bloat with PowerShell commands, or you could remove the bloat with MSMG ToolKit from the installation image at source, so it's not even installed in the first place. I prefer the latter where possible

Make sure the BIOS is up-to-date and to install the latest drivers available. I use Snappy Driver Installer Origin to install the majority of drivers, but avoid using SDIO to install touchpad/trackpad and keyboard/function key drivers as I've had problems with touchpads not working after using SDIO to update those drivers.